The 20 best satellite images of 2012
DigitalGlobe owns three satellites with big cameras on them, which together have imaged nearly 2.8 billion square kilometers of Earth's surface. You probably don't care about 2.7999 billion of those square kilometers, but that's cool, because DigitalGlobe has picked out the 20 very best little patches of our planet for 2012.
Some of you may have noticed that two billion square kilometers is significantly more than the entire surface area of the Earth (which currently stands at about 150 million square kilometers), but it's useful to keep on taking pictures of the same stuff to see how it changes over time. That way, we can document exactly how we're going about trashing our planet so that after it's too late, we can tell our kids "see, this is what not to do."
Check out all 20 images in the gallery below, and vote for your favorite from the top five on DigitalGlobe's Facebook page here.
DigitalGlobe, via Gizmodo
Full disclosure: the author used to work for GeoEye, which was acquired by DigitalGlobe, and thinks the whole idea of taking pictures of the Earth from space is hella cool.
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Monte Carlo, Monaco 9/22/12 - annual yacht show
Antarctica 1/27/12 - calving shown
Koolan Island, Australia 9/19/12 - iron ore mine
Bahrain 9/26/12 - grid pattern on the sea floor
Subi Reef, China 8/8/12 - controversial construction of a possible landing strip, buildings, and wharfs
Chile 10/14/12 - Chuquicamata copper mine
Chile 4/02/12 - Andes, Puntiagudo-Cordón Cenizos volcanic chain
Sandouping, China 8/01/12 - Three Gorges Dam
Italy 2/04/12 - Costa Concordia
Japan 9/20/12 - Mt. Fuji, highest peak in Japan
Greenland 7/19/12 - Petermann Glacier, massive icebergs calve
Jacobabad, Pakistan 9/20/12 - flood, false color image (dark blue and black = water)
New Mexico 9/20/12 - Space Shuttle Endeavour atop a 747
Tokyo, Japan 4/07/12 - Skytree, tallest self supported structure in Asia
Homs, Syria 2/15/12 - pipeline fire
London, UK 7/23/12 - Olympic village
Northern England 9/06/12 - mine sculpture known as "The Lady of the North"
Nevada 8/28/12 - Burning Man festival
Reading, Vermont 10/05/12 - fall colors
Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City 4/08/12 - easter
